JD Vance is now saying something completely different from what his MAGA colleague Pete Hegseth said two days ago. The Vice President stated that the news of the Qatari Air Force facility being built in Idaho is false. On October 10, during a meeting with the Qatari defense minister, Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Hegseth made the grand announcement that was met with some significant backlash soon after.
“I’m also proud that today we’re announcing we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho,” said the Secretary of Defense. He added, “The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots.”
BREAKING: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that the Pentagon will host a new Qatari Air Force facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho — where Qatari pilots will train on F-15 fighter jets. The move marks a deepening of defense ties with Qatar, which… pic.twitter.com/OI4YeEe9pB
— Travis Hawley (@talk2trav) October 10, 2025
He also added that the facility would “enhance our combined training, increase lethality,” and “interoperability” between the nations.
However, on his Fox News appearance on Sunday morning, JD Vance said something completely different. When asked by host Maria Bartiromo, he called Hegseth’s announcement a “fake story.”
“Yeah, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, this morning. This is largely a fake story,” Vance said. “We continue to have with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways,” he continued.
The Vice President further clarified, “The reporting that somehow there’s going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that’s just not true. We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace, but we’re not going to let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil.”
Q: What exactly is this Qatar facility in Idaho?
Vance: This is largely a fake story… It’s not true that we’ll have a Qatari airbase on U.S. soil.
Pete Hegseth on Friday: “We’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emeri air force facility”
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— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 12, 2025
JD Vance concluded, “So there’s a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.” Hegseth’s announcement was met with a huge backlash, including from the MAGA base. Laura Loomer, a known Trump ally, complained in a series of tweets. “[expletive language] IS AMERICA FIRST ABOUT ALLOWING QATAR TO HAVE A MILITARY BASE ON US SOIL? This is an abomination. So much for ‘Make America Safe Again,’” wrote Loomer.
Soon after making the announcement, the Secretary of Defense went on X (formerly Twitter) to make an “important clarification.”
“The U.S. military has a long-standing partnership w/ Qatar, including today’s announced cooperation w/ F-15QA aircraft,” he wrote. Hegseth added, “However, to be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States—nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”
